DRIVER, CLEANER OF TRUCK WITH BUFFALO MEAT GET HC REPRIEVE

MUMBAI: In a reprieve for a driver and cleaner of a refrigerated truck carrying frozen buffalo meat, the Bombay high court has restrained Khalapur police from filing charge sheet against the duo booked for purportedly transporting beef.

The division bench of justice RM Savant and justice Revati Mohite-dere has issued the restraining order primarily in view of the landmark high court judgement of June 5, 2016 decriminalised import of beef – cow or bull meat from some other state or country where slaughtering of the cow progeny is not prohibited by law. In this case the frozen buffalo meat, suspected by police to be the meat banned in Maharashtra, was being transported from Kolkata and slaughtering had taken place in West Bengal and not in Maharashtra, even if it was believed to be beef.

Asgar Ali Rashid Ali, employed by DBRC Transport Company from Gurgaon as driver, and his assistant Naseem Imrat Ali, were driving a refrigerated truck carrying 24 metric tonnes of frozen buffalo meat. They had loaded the truck in the premises of Kelly Trading Company at Kolkata and were supposed to deliver it to Erican Exports Limited for exporting the consignment abroad. However, on December 14, 2017, when the truck reached Khalapur, local police searched the consignment, opened the sealed boneless meat packets packed for export, and booked both, the driver and the cleaner.

Both of them approached the HC seeking quashing of the offence registered against them on various grounds. Their counsel, Rishi Malhotra, argued the provisions of the Maharashtra Animal Preservation Act, 1976 were not attracted in the case, even if it was assumed that the meat was beef, primarily in view of the HC’S ruling of June 2016 .

ASGAR ALI RASHID ALI AND NASEEM IMRAT ALI WERE ALLEGEDLY TRANSPORTING BUFFALO MEAT WHEN THEY WERE BOOKED FOR TRANSPORTING BEEF